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Pond algae control using
ultra violet light
ULTRA VIOLET LIGHT Clarifiers (UV's for
short)
The one single piece of pond equipment that will improve the year
round appearance of any water outdoor feature more than anything else
is the Ultra violet light. Pond algae control using ultra violet light
is easy and foolproof
Sometimes called an Ultra Violet sterilizer (even UV filter - it is not
a filter of any kind). It does only one job:
It kills suspended algae in any pond system.
It works every time without fail so long as specified properly. All
that has to be done to make sure it continues to work year in and year
out is to change the UV lamp every 8,000 hours or so (about every
year).
Here is basic information about UV light and what it does:
Algae are plants and therefore need food and oxygen and sunlight to
grow and survive. Like most of us the more food, the more oxygen and
the more sunlight the better and bigger the algae grow. In the right
conditions the algae grow at an explosive rate - 30 times per hour!!
The usual problem encountered is that of green water sometimes brown
which does not go clear and even after changing the water the algae
re-appears very quickly and this happens even if you have a filter
installed perhaps.
Green/brown cloudy water is normally caused by these millions of algae
remaining suspended in the water. Each algae is about 4 microns in
diameter (1 micron is 1 millionth of a metre or very very very small).
A filter cannot remove such small items.
Algae growth is most common in ponds where conditions are most suited
to their requirements - lots of fish being fed lots of food, warm
water as it is in summer, and strong sunlight.
When a pond is badly infected by green water then your fish can all
suddenly die and this happens overnight normally.
The reason is again simple and is because algae are plants ... they
produce oxygen during the day but they produce carbon dioxide at night
by taking oxygen out of the water.
Algae in large mass can totally deplete the oxygen from a pond. The
fish therefore suffocate. This is also very much more common in heat
wave situations because at higher temperatures water can hold less
oxygen anyway.
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